


Sands of Lost Barzun

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Authority, Barzun, Bazhir, Conquest, Dominion, F/M, Gen, Iron Grip, Lost - Freeform, Politics, Tortall, Uprising, power, sand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jasson struggles to control his new dominion.





	Sands of Lost Barzun

Sands of Lost Barzun

When a courier came with reports of another violent uprising by the barbarians in the desert he had conquered for Tortall, Jasson stormed into his study to crush the sands—as bright as gold but more valuable because each grain represented the blood and lives of his fallen soldiers—he had carried back from the desert between his fingers, imagining that he was choking the Bazhir as he squeezed his fists around the sand. He would ride south with his armies and punish the Bazhir with his iron hand. He would destroy them so that even generations after he was in his grave, they wouldn’t dream of revolt. 

The Bazhir, he thought, were savages who needed to be ruled with a tight grip or the empire he was building would crumble, inviting the same ridicule his father had when surrendering tracts of strategic land to Galla and Tusaine. He had fought too hard to restore the realm to respectability after his father’s drunkenness was paid for with one important territory after the next to risk rebellion in the desert trade routes he had won for Tortall. 

“We have a saying in Barzun.” Daneline’s voice in his ear almost made him start. In his ire, he had forgotten to slam the door shut, and his wife—whom he had captured along with her family’s castle when he began his Barzun campaign—had dared to intrude upon his solitude. 

“Barzun is no more,” he snapped, glaring at her with his most menacing scowl that caused knights in armor to cower before him. “I’ve conquered it as you should well remember, my lady.” 

She with her steel eyes and unruly curls didn’t flinch. Instead she went on with only a fearless lift of her chin to indicate that she had heard him, “We say that the Bazhir are like the sands on which they live.” 

“They’re rough and slide between cracks in your armor if you aren’t wary?” Jasson had marched away from his desert campaign with as much bitterness toward the sand that scratched his skin raw as he had for the Bazhir, who could fire arrows backward as they retreated from legions of soldiers. 

“No.” Daneline nodded at his fists that were now empty of sand. “They slip through your fingers all the quicker the harder you try to cling onto them. Your iron grip only makes more of them escape.”


End file.
